Friday, July 11, 2014

It Conquered the World

Following a worldwide power loss, Dr. Tom Anderson (Lee Van Cleef) reveals to his
friend Dr. Paul Nelson (Peter Graves) that he has helped an alien from Venus
find its way to Earth. Ostensibly it’s here to help save the world, but the moment it lands, it starts giving birth
to small bat like creatures that deposit mind control devices on key people
in the town. It looks like the thing from Venus has other plans entirely.

Okay, let’s get this out of the way: the monster is utterly ludicrous
looking. Even though there is some thought behind its appearance; the high
pressures of the Venusian atmosphere could reasonably cause it to have a compact squat
shape, it still looks like nothing more than a really pissed off traffic cone.
The monster is so silly
looking that when placed against Van Cleef and Graves, both of whom are desperately
trying to maintain some gravitas, the whole film goes out
on a weirdly comical note.

Up until that point, It Conquered the World actually works
pretty hard to build some tension and mystery. An early scene, when Dr. Anderson is
demonstrating his receiver for picking up signals from Venus, and talks of
a message hidden behind the seemingly random noise, is effectively eerie. As he sees the horror that he's brought to Earth, Tom
Anderson’s descent from idealist to shell shocked dupe, is a strong character arc and it easily steals the film from Peter
Graves’ square jawed and rather bland hero. Beverly Garland’s turn as Claire
Anderson is another great role, it’s rare to see a housewife in a 50s SF film ever speak up
much less grab a shotgun and go face down the monster in its own cave.

For a film that clocks in at 71 minutes there is far
too much time wasted with comedy relief. As much as I love seeing character actor, Dick Miller, on
screen, watching him have to suffer through scene after scene with a vaguely
racist character like Pvt. Manuel Oritz (Jonathan Haze) is agonizingly unfunny.
It’s also hard to ignore (especially since was highlighted in the MST3K
episode) the exceptionally lengthy speech that Dr. Nelson delivers at the
film's closing. It’s so long and rambling that it descends into parody, providing an almost perfect capper to the misplaced comedy of the final battle with the creature.

For a relatively inexpensive Corman film, It Conquered the
World never looks like a threadbare production. The flying mind-control
bat/manta-ray things are not great looking but for 1956 they work
well enough. Even the monster, as unfortunate a design as it is, looks like it had some care put into its construction.

It Conquered the World is a curiosity, it both defies many of
the cliches of 50's b-movies ( a strong female character with agency, and a morally
complex protagonist) but at the same time embraces them (silly looking monsters, a
central white male figure who is an absolute authority). The friction between these aspects takes what could have been just another budget minded monster movie and
transforms it into fascinating viewing.